


Blurry Eyes

by Finni_Squid



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (intense trumpet), :), Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Before the Divorce tm, CW Peter Bathrobe, Content Warning Peter Lukas Bathrobe, Elias is blind, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, FRIENDSHIP :), Gen, He never once wore it but god the fact that it exists is painful, He/Him and They/Them Pronouns for Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Its got his initials and everything. disgusting, Its the eye of Elias, Jon is dead :(, Jonah bought it for him, Man doesnt even shower, Mentioned Peter Lukas, ND Elias Bouchard, ND Og Elias, Neurodivergent Og Elias, No beta we die like archival assistants, OG Elias Bouchard, POV Elias Bouchard, Playing favourites i see, Spoilers for The Magnus Archives Season 5, Stoner Elias Bouchard, TMA, TMA Fanfic, The Ceaseless Watcher's special little boy, The Magnus Archives Fanfic, Trans Martin Blackwood, We hate it here, but not actually he doesnt have eyes, bye bye jon, grounded from sight, man (horse at sea image), mom said its my turn on the beholding, og elias, the magnus archives - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:21:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27747424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finni_Squid/pseuds/Finni_Squid
Summary: Elias had Jonah magnus removed from his body! Unfortunately he's blind, the world has ended, he's missing 4 decades of his life and Martin is alone again.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	Blurry Eyes

When Elias had awoken, he didn't hear his alarm that would have woken him any other weekday. No alarm, just deep body pain and a killer headache. And by the feeling of it, he fell asleep in the living room, as he could feel cold rigid wood and poorly stuffed velvet around him. Not like anything he had owned. What day was it? Was he simply out partying too late and fell asleep on someone's uncomfortable old chair? His body was heavy and lethargic, like he had been sitting down far too long for his adhd brain to be happy with. 

'Did I sleep through my alarm?'

Then he noticed, his face felt like it was burning. He thought it was just some combination of a hangover and maybe a sinus infection, but when he tried to blink away the dark nothing had changed. He couldn't even tell if he was blinking or not. Everything was pitch black and he could feel how hot and moist his face was. His thoughts are racing now, thinking of every bad scenario that he could have gotten himself into. The more he tried to blink away whatever was causing him this blindness the more his nerves awoke and would send sharp jets of pain through his entire face and neck. He bit his lip and let out a staggered whimper and went to touch his face. His entire body hurt so deeply and he could feel his back and shoulders screaming in protest at him moving. He tentatively went to touch his eyelids and he noticed how incredibly swollen they were and covered in what he could only guess was blood. He decided not to investigate any further. He's sure he doesn't need to know how badly he hurt himself until he was in the hospital so doped up he couldn't move. 

'If I can just get to the phone, I can call 999. I just need to stand up and find the landline.' He thought. His hands and legs were awfully shaky and he didn't know if he could walk but he needed to try. The pain was coming in unexpected bursts and he noticed that the corners of his eyelids were completely numb. Like most things about this situation, he didn't want to think about it. More specifically he didn't want to think about what implications nerve damage would have on his ability to see when he could get the swelling down. His hands gripped around the carved wooden arm rests. He could feel his knuckles whiten and his elbows wobble violently as he used all of his strength to push himself up and out of the chair, nearly losing his balance and doubling over, catching himself on the armrests. 

He held himself up clutching the armrest, his legs and arms ached incredibly and his knees were so wobbly he was sure he was gonna fall over. More whimpering escaped his tightly sealed lips. His hands were clammy and causing him to lose his grip on the armrest. He took one hand and wiped it on his shirt, er, that, that is not his shirt. It feels like some kind of silk, and he can feel fuzz around the neckline and following it down to his waist, a belt? Is he in a bathrobe?  
Good God. He felt around a bit more just to be sure and yup, he was in a bathrobe alright. It's even monogrammed, on the left breast he traced his fingers around the cursive letters and he could make out 'P' and 'L' but the middle initial was lost on him. Even though he was in a serious health crisis he couldn't help but feel embarrassed. Partly for himself but mostly for the type of person who owns a monogrammed bathrobe. 

Embarrassment aside he had pushed himself up and, very slowly and steadily, he got as upright as he could be. Luckily he was still in shoes so he didn't have to worry about the cold floor. Wait, it shouldn't be cold, it's summer. Why is it so chilly? Also a stranger's bathrobe and what feels like dress shoes? How drunk did he get last night? The questions still buzzing in his ears, he slid his foot across the ground. He was reminded of being a child, when his parents had turned out all of the lights and he was trying to sneak into the kitchen, sliding his feet as not to trip or make any sound. Except he was expecting a carpet of some kind, or even smooth wood but this felt, odd. Stone maybe? Coarse under his feet and it caused a friction that was oddly comforting knowing he won't be sliding all over the place. 

Where the hell was he? Some creepy man's basement no doubt. Had he gotten himself kidnapped? God not like anyone would know he was gone.. maybe his boss would note when he doesn't show up for work but that would take a while. But then he remembered he was in line for a promotion so maybe he would be found sooner than he thought! 'No no, don't think of that, just try to get to a phone.' He held out his arms as he slid his feet across the floor. Going slowly and his face was starting to hurt so much he couldn't actually feel it anymore which he reasoned was at least helpful. Except every now and then when he unbalanced his head and the deep sinus pain would jolt his poor brain. His shoe hit something, something old feeling, like that sort of light and delicate hardness that makes you feel like it would turn to dust in your hands. 

He slowly bent down and put a hand on what he had kicked. It felt like paper and baby powder, and was beyond dead, but even in his blinded state he recognized the shape of a human head.

He screamed and fell back. His first thought of course being "oh God a dead body!" and "I have definitely been kidnapped and now I'm in a creepy man's basement!" Which was followed up by "oh God what if my scream alerted who ever did this?". He was pretty focused on someone hearing him right now, for better or for worse. Maybe his scream was powerful enough to alert the neighbors? But he lost hope on that pretty quickly. 

He was sitting on the floor, hands flapping against his thighs while his thoughts raced wildly. He felt extremely close to tears but it was hard to tell if he was currently crying or even had that ability left, cursing his stupid mangled face. He then promptly thought, 'oh God my mangled face!' And the weeping ensued. He didn't know if he was producing tears but he was definitely crying, loudly and unapologetically. When he finally had some control over his wildly stimming hands, he had gotten on his knees and started crawling in the opposite direction of the body, heaving sobs. His body was so sore. His face was probably ruined and he was sure he was going to die here. He was genuinely surprised he was still moving. Especially through the full body convulsions that his crying was causing. 

The rough stone was scraping his palms and knees but he hardly noticed the stinging through literally everything else. The long bathrobe was not helping. Every now and then he would accidentally pin himself down with his knee and lunge forward. Luckily he had only hit the floor once, but the pain from hitting his face against the floor was enough to cause him to lay there for a good minute while he mustered up strength to keep going. He was going in circles trying to get a layout of the basement he was trapped in so maybe he could pull some 'poor blind idiot' act and then run towards the exit. He knew it was far fetched but he needed the hope. 

Yet another lurch of his robe caught him off guard and he fully fell forward this time. Bracing for the hard rough stone he was surprised when he was met with something soft and, cable knit?  
'Oh God, oh no. No. No. Not again.'  
He cried in shock, some mixture of gasping and incoherent mumbling. Pushing himself upwards he could feel the limp arm brush against his chest. He tried to push himself away but his hand brushed this poor fools. It felt, fresh. It was cold, so probably dead for a while but the skin was fine and he figured maybe he could gain some semblance of information from it. He did not want to come near another dead person, let alone examine one via touch but, maybe he could find, something? He doesn't know what, but something is better than nothing.

He sat frog style on the floor next to the dead body and he waited. Mostly to gain some control over the slobbering, heaving mess that was his body. Once he felt, calm enough, he felt for the hand. As soon as he felt the cold dead thing he instantly recoiled and shook his hand, as if to fling off the feeling of death. There was a deep disgust at touching the dead and he couldn't shake it. But in his mind maybe this had the answer he needed to get out, so he reached out again.

It was small, cold and covered in small circular scars polkadoted all over the back of the hand. He lifted it up, the rigor mortis not letting him simply turn it, and he could feel the deep scar that covered the palm. He could follow it branching off into five distinct paths, four of which ending on the pinky and some hit the ring finger. A shudder went down his spine, 'tracing the lines of their life' was his exact thought. It wasn't very helpful after all… the only thing he could gather was it had been dead for a few hours to a day and they had been very unlucky with hand injuries.

To say he was frustrated is an understatement, he was brimming with seven different emotions and could only recognize two of them. Feeling like all of his hope for escape had vanished with how little this stranger's dead hand revealed, was one of those. And just when he was feeling himself fall back into a sobbing mess, as it was so easy to do in this situation, he thought 'pockets!'. He quickly went to feel over the person's long coat, taking a moment to run his fingers over the corduroy texture. Well he thought it was a long coat but after a minute of looking he thinks this person was just short. 

When he moved his fingers over the seam lines of a pocket he couldn't hide the excitement, his unused hand doing an exited open-close motion. This pocket was empty but now that he knew the placement finding the other one should be easy, and it was. The contents of this one were slightly more insightful, though still unhelpful. A tape recorder, some change, a pencil and what felt like a folded up picture. Nothing to aid in his escape with that one. As he was tracing the buttons of the tape recorder a thought crossed his mind, but he didn't want to touch a dead person's face. That would surely be an invasion of whatever privacy is left in this place, but he just had to know. 'Have they been blinded too?'. Against his resolve to not feel up a dead human's face, he could feel himself lift his arm. Though his body were moving on its own, he reached a hand. Brushing over chapped lips and a thick unkempt beard, both his curiosity and decency screaming at him. He felt the point of a nose lightly press against his fingers. He really, really didn't want to feel a dead person's face.

Sure enough, he barely needed to follow the bridge of their nose to find the blood. He was so focused on deeply not wanting to feel a dead person's face simultaneously deeply needing to know he didn't even hear the footsteps.

They seemed to echo as if from an enclosed staircase, and they seemed to be coming at not quite a fast pace but a determined one. They were heavy and whoever was making them was winded. But Elias was too busy being horrified. Him feeling the blood was enough to tell him what he needed to know. He was so fucked. Just over and over in his mind, that's it, he was going to die there. His hand still on the dead person's face, as much as he didn't want to admit to himself, the feeling of any human contact was comforting. It's not like he was a well connected man, to put it generously. He was already crying over everything that was happening; he didn't need to unpack how deeply alone and touch starved he is. 

When the footsteps finally got to the top of the stairs, Elias finally noticed. Mostly because the labored breathing was much louder now. He froze. His head facing the direction of the sound he imagined himself to look like a deer in headlights. Was this a friend? Or the sick bastard who did this to him and these two other poor fuckers. He had no way of knowing and that was beyond stressful. The breathing started to calm, and he could feel his own pick up. He was already so hopped up on adrenalin but he could feel the buzzy sensation kick in full drive. His head feels like it's swimming, but it's not like it was solid before.

It had been quiet for too long. Couldn't have been more than 30 seconds but he was sure this person saw him. If he could see, surely they would be staring at each other. His hand resting on the dead man's face, now ridged with fear. Fight or flight was really failing him right now.  
Finally, the stranger spoke.  
"Jonah, Jonah you need to, you get away from him."  
His voice wavered when he spoke but there was no uncertainty he was deadly serious, and Elias was afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow! Finn starting another fic he will forget to finish? More likely than you think.  
> As always, feedback is appreciated :)  
> Thank you to my two lovely partners for helping my boomer ass edit.  
> And thank you to one of those lovely partners for helping me write the tags and being funnier than I ever could.


End file.
